Bama Game Thread: OFFICIAL POSTGAME THREAD - Bama vs. The Hogs...

[gtgilbert]

Also, we finally started putting 3 down linemen in the game to run our base 3-4 defense in 4th quarter. The Hawgs had zero success against that

After I saw this post, I rewatched the 4th because I didn't recall ever seeing the 3-4. We didn't. We ran the 2-4 grouping 20(ish) times, the 1-4 (2olb and 2ILB) 3 times and the 1-4 (3 OLB/cheetah and 1 ILB) 1 time. There were several times that we slid Anderson inside a bit and had the other OLB outside of him and walked the Star up near the LOS also, so it kinda looked like a 3-4, but the grouping was still the 2-4 we've run most of the year.

I think the reason they didn't have the same level of success was that the 2 quick scores meant they didn't have time to run the ball as much, and had to rely on the pass, which our 2-4 (essentially our base set now) groupings are much better against

Edit to add - the reason I wanted to see is that I was wondering why Golding didn't switch to at least the heavy nickel package with 3DL, one OLB and 2ILBs to help stop getting gashed by the run like we were, and he never did.

 

[KrAzY3]

First off, I have to really appreciate that the team took care of business when Young first went out. It would have been easy to be kind of reeling after that but then everyone did their job and extended the lead.

Then Alabama entered a period of some of the worst Alabama football I have seen in a while. You have a 28 point lead with just over one half of football left, you've dominated in all facets really, and your starting QB is out and you know you can't let up... and then you go through a period where you are outscored 23-0? It was both scary and disappointing. I don't think anyone gets a pass there either, because basically if offense, or defense, or special teams really just kept things up the game is never in doubt.

Having said all that, assuming Young does return this year and in the relatively near future there can be a silver lining to all of this. Alabama does really need to establish a more proficient running game (a lot of their rushing yards have come late in games). This might happen now out of necessity, which could be a good thing.

It's much easier for a physical running team to add finesse elements than the other way around. We saw what happened when Tua came in for Hurts, it was the top rushing Nick Saban team but they passing game still worked. We saw it later in the year when Coker was the starter, a dominant rushing offense built around Henry, yet they were able to unleash the passing game late in the season. So, if they can get this running game going they'll be better for it...

Finally, Kool-Aid isn't just the leading punt returner in the nation, he's ahead by 80 yards... He has 3 times as many punt return years as the #14 guy.

 

[Perrett4Bama]

I'll give credit to the offensive line for getting the blocks to allow them to get the 317 yds. on the ground.

340.... I think 23 was subtracted because of the muffed punt

 

[Tidewater]

340.... I think 23 was subtracted because of the muffed punt

Any word on what happened with the long snapper on that one? Was he anticipating that the punter would shift to his right, so the long snapper snapped it that way or just a messed up snap?

 

[DzynKingRTR]

340.... I think 23 was subtracted because of the muffed punt

Actually it was 342. There was 25 subtracted for 2 "team" losses.

 

[Evil Crimson Dragon]

Also, we finally started putting 3 down linemen in the game to run our base 3-4 defense in 4th quarter. The Hawgs had zero success against that

3-4 is a lot better than what was previously run

 

[DzynKingRTR]

Apparently according to the interwebs Gary is a huge Bama fan. What game did they watch?

 

[bamaga]

When the defense stopped Arky on the 10? Yard line with 2 minutes to go , did anyone else want to see Milroe run the 2 minute offense.

The D line consists of only 2 down linemen on most plays. We use 4 LBs . The D linemen did a fairly respectable job so eating double was the MLBs that played poorly toda.y.

The base defense is still a 3-4, although we play more 3-3-5 these days, so 4 linebackers is not unusual. But, you are right, there were only 2 down linemen on that play. The 2 down lineman, Oatis and Young got ran over. Maybe 47 was a little dinged up still and 91 doesn’t have the core strength yet of a 4-5 year Oline vet, but if teams gain 4 yards straight up the middle on the Cheetah package, that’s a weakness of that defense. Arkansas is a running team, to not play a 3-4 or 3-3-5 is crazy.

 

[bamaga]

Injury report on the game?

 

[4Q Basket Case]

Eeyores were out in full force in the 2nd half game thread. Milroe performed as well as you could hope QB 2 could. Handed a 14-0 game and went on to lead 5 TD drives including the spark Bama needed in the 3Q.

Some were saying “just run the offense.” Not that simple with Milroe. I think this could be a fun offense to watch that’s run heavy with running to pass.

Agreed. Milroe and Young have different skill sets. So "the offense" under Milroe is different from what it is under Young.....as it should be. We're not talking about an entirely different philosophy, but rather skewing the playcalls to allow the QB to do what he does best. And as much grief as BOB has gotten (a lot of it deserved), I thought he did a really good job of that yesterday.

Young is a good runner, but Milroe is far better. Milroe is an adequate passer. He's improving, but I still worry about mental mistakes forcing passes where they don't need to be, and inaccuracy missing open receivers. IOW, he's no Bryce Young -- but who is?

We need to run the offense that's best suited to the QB. As I posted in the game thread: Until Bryce is back, whenever that is, we're an RPO team....which isn't all bad.

I thought the O-Line showed great improvement yesterday. RPOs keep the D from being able to tee off on the pass rush, which should help the OL even more.

And as others have noted, things just seem to go better with McLaughlin at Center. Maybe he doesn't have the measurables that Dalcourt does. But to my untrained eye, he seems to play better in actual games.

 

[gtgilbert]

When the defense stopped Arky on the 10? Yard line with 2 minutes to go , did anyone else want to see Milroe run the 2 minute offense.

The base defense is still a 3-4, although we play more 3-3-5 these days, so 4 linebackers is not unusual. But, you are right, there were only 2 down linemen on that play. The 2 down lineman, Oatis and Young got ran over. Maybe 47 was a little dinged up still and 91 doesn’t have the core strength yet of a 4-5 year Oline vet, but if teams gain 4 yards straight up the middle on the Cheetah package, that’s a weakness of that defense. Arkansas is a running team, to not play a 3-4 or 3-3-5 is crazy.

the 3-4-4 hasn't really been our base defense in years. It's still in the toolkit and we still release a depth chart with the positions listed, but it is very, very rarely used (like less than 5% over the last 5 years). The 3-3-5 (with a JLB and 2ILB) was the base look with the 2-4-5 as a sub package on pure passing downs pre-2021. In 2020 we started seeing about an even split with the 2-4-5 (2OLB and 2ILB) and then in 2021 and into this year, we've run the 2-4-5 a vast majority of the time. Both groupings can look like either a 4-2 or a 3-3 front as we line up, so just the groupings are different. I don't think we used the 3-3-5 in the traditional sense at all last night - at least not in the second half because I was loudly begging Golding through my TV to move to that grouping to get more mass into the game and slow down the running game. As you said - it's crazy NOT to against a running team like that. I think we didn't because we were thin on the DL with guys banged up and we didn't have what we wanted from an edge DL who would have been Young (played hurt) or Eboigbe (out for game).

Our 'cheetah' package is very interesting where we really only have 1 true DL in the game and 4LBs. Sometimes it's 3OLBs and one ILB, but last night we also ran it a lot with 2OLBs and 2ILBs with Moody and Lawson taking on the rush role that an OLB had typically had.

 

[colbysullivan]

Seth needs to be the starter at center. Our line is flat out better with him out there, snap issues notwithstanding.

 

[Bamabuzzard]

Agreed. Milroe and Young have different skill sets. So "the offense" under Milroe is different from what it is under Young.....as it should be. We're not talking about an entirely different philosophy, but rather skewing the playcalls to allow the QB to do what he does best. And as much grief as BOB has gotten (a lot of it deserved), I thought he did a really good job of that yesterday.

Young is a good runner, but Milroe is far better. Milroe is an adequate passer. He's improving, but I still worry about mental mistakes forcing passes where they don't need to be, and inaccuracy missing open receivers. IOW, he's no Bryce Young -- but who is?

We need to run the offense that's best suited to the QB. As I posted in the game thread: Until Bryce is back, whenever that is, we're an RPO team....which isn't all bad.

I thought the O-Line showed great improvement yesterday. RPOs keep the D from being able to tee off on the pass rush, which should help the OL even more.

And as others have noted, things just seem to go better with McLaughlin at Center. Maybe he doesn't have the measurables that Dalcourt does. But to my untrained eye, he seems to play better in actual games.

Milroe saved our hindends yesterday, but I do not think he is an adequate passer. His current passing skills aren't good enough to handle the second half of the schedule. It worked yesterday, but if teams have a week to gameplan, we're dead in the water.

 

[RollTide_HTTR]

Milroe saved our hindends yesterday, but I do not think he is an adequate passer. His current passing skills aren't good enough to handle the second half of the schedule. It worked yesterday, but if teams have a week to gameplan, we're dead in the water.

I agree that Milroe didn't look like much throwing the ball but we didn't game plan to have him at QB and he wasn't taking first team reps all week.

It's reasonable to believe he'll be improved with a full week of practice as the guy (if needed) and with the game plan revolving around his skill set.

Hopefully Bryce is good to go and we don't amhave to worry about it but if we do i think we should expect at least slightly better play as a passer from Milroe

 

[tmaxam99]

340.... I think 23 was subtracted because of the muffed punt

Espn has 317 rushing yards. Either way 317 total yards for the game.

 

[Con]

Roll Tide! That was a real rollercoaster of a game. I loved the way we responded to the adversity. We still have a ways to go but I like the fact that we haven’t come close to putting together a complete game yet.

 

[Bama Lee]

After I saw this post, I rewatched the 4th because I didn't recall ever seeing the 3-4. We didn't. We ran the 2-4 grouping 20(ish) times, the 1-4 (2olb and 2ILB) 3 times and the 1-4 (3 OLB/cheetah and 1 ILB) 1 time. There were several times that we slid Anderson inside a bit and had the other OLB outside of him and walked the Star up near the LOS also, so it kinda looked like a 3-4, but the grouping was still the 2-4 we've run most of the year.

I think the reason they didn't have the same level of success was that the 2 quick scores meant they didn't have time to run the ball as much, and had to rely on the pass, which our 2-4 (essentially our base set now) groupings are much better against

Edit to add - the reason I wanted to see is that I was wondering why Golding didn't switch to at least the heavy nickel package with 3DL, one OLB and 2ILBs to help stop getting gashed by the run like we were, and he never did.

I agree that we didn't use it all of the time. Of course, down and distance dictates the packages applied. But we did use it. Please look at the picture below:

 

[bamaclimber]

Milroe saved our hindends yesterday, but I do not think he is an adequate passer. His current passing skills aren't good enough to handle the second half of the schedule. It worked yesterday, but if teams have a week to gameplan, we're dead in the water.

Out of curiosity, do you think Milroe would be starting at any other SEC school right now? Is he a backup wherever he is, or would he be a starter at some places? Also, "dead in the water" feels a little extreme. Not sure BOB has proven he can do it, but it would seem some play callers could find a way to scheme around his weaknesses, at least to the point that he's not dead in the water.

 

[CoolBreeze]

Milroe saved our hindends yesterday, but I do not think he is an adequate passer. His current passing skills aren't good enough to handle the second half of the schedule. It worked yesterday, but if teams have a week to gameplan, we're dead in the water.

I don't know about dead in the water. Remember, Milroe was as surprised he was going in as everyone else. He did not look like a dear in the headlights in a hostile environment. He came alive under difficult circumstances. The whole team did. I hope Bryce comes back soon but I think we are just fine with Jalen for a while given scheming, practice snaps and game planning with him every week. The QB is the linchpin of the offense but we have a lot of weapons around him that can rise to the occasion and help. That is what is going to happen.

 

[PA Tide Fan]

I think Saban will say all week that playing Bryce will be a game time decision to not tip off Jimbo. TAMU must come up with two defensive game plans now since they don't know if they will see an aerial assault with Young or a ground and pound with Milroe.